New York journo calls for end to ‘fascist’ singing of ‘offensive’ God Bless America

Larry O'ConnorPosted at 10:01 am on July 1, 2016

Leave it to the completely unhinged New York Daily News to start your Independence Day weekend off with an outrageous assault on patriotism.

Columnist Gersh Kuntzman is calling on Major League Baseball to singing God Bless America during the 7th inning stretch of select baseball games because it’s “fascist” to have people honor America with this song:

Part of my outrage stems from ponderous Mussolini-esque introduction of the song, when fans are asked to rise, remove their caps and place them over their hearts.

Reality check, friends: “God Bless America” is not the National Anthem. The only songs Americans should stand for are “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Here Comes the Bride.”

Even Irving Berlin, who wrote “God Bless America” in 1918, considered it so maudlin and depressing that he stuck it in a drawer. Twenty years later, as the world prepared for war, Kate Smith asked Berlin for a patriotic song for her radio show. He pulled out “God Bless America” and changed one lame line — “the gold fields up in Nome” — to an even lamer line — “oceans white with foam.” You know the rest: Smith’s version became as much a symbol of post-war patriotism as the flag, the space program and all the white people moving to the suburbs.

Tony Bennett messes up lyrics to ‘God Bless America’ at Giants game

The song still embodies great things about America, but also our worst things: self-righteousness, forced piety, earnest self-reverence, foam.

And Kuntzman clearly knows a thing or two about “self-righteousness,” doesn’t he?

Kuntzman goes on to detail how the song “offends everyone” as his headline states. However, along with so much else one finds in the pages of the New York Daily News these days, the idea that God Bless America “offends everyone” is only true when viewed through the eyes of a progressive leftist:

“God Bless America” is as divisive as American politics: Kaskowitz’s research found that 83.8% of people who described themselves as “very liberal” dislike the song, while only 20.5% of people who called themselves “very conservative” have a problem with it.

And more than 88% of atheists dislike the song, Kaskowitz found. (Quick aside: We atheists also hate having “In God we Trust” on the currency and in the courtrooms of a country whose Constitution bars the “establishment of religion” — but that’s a fight for another day.)

I can’t quite figure out if Kuntzman and the Daily News hate America, or if they just hate Americans who love America.

Either way, while we are in the business of banning things that offend, how about some of the recent covers from the Daily News: